It was a terribly busy year for me - I had been to New York for an International Gerontology Conference, given a paper on "difficult patients" with lots of solid research in it, learned that this was to be published as a chapter in a book, later I had been on a lecture tour in New Zealand, and then - after all these!
It was very exciting to be going to Genoa, with the prospect probably! But, nevertheless, it was exciting to be all together, to get a proposal through, and to have prospects of the formal Constitution being accepted at the next world congress. It was at that time assumed this would be in UK but it did not happen - I am not sure of the reasons - so that there was this long gap between Genoa in and Rio in I was given the task of writing the Constitution because I had written the constitution for AMTA [Australian Music Therapy Association] and for another different organisation with legal advice, of course so I was given the responsibility for evolving an acceptable internationally acceptable Constitution.
I have written about that already in material that will appear re the Rio congress - e. But this was dealt with by my pointing out that to give each organisation a separate vote of equal value was to reward divisiveness! I can recall a terribly posh dinner party for the committee, in a sort of palace with a terribly grand, heavily decorated ceiling! I also recall on a more professional note that the presentation by Tony Wigram and Olav Skille about vibro-acoustic therapy was greeted with great interest, but from some people considerable skepticism.
Some people saw it as Not Really Therapy. I chose a scene with light just filtering through shadows of trees, to symbolise the idea of hope coming through despite darkness and the adverse pressures. So Genoa was to me a mixture of excitement and relief, with new responsibilities, but with some disappointment at some aspects of the beginning of the new association.
I am sending you some of my memories of the World Congress in Genoa. The abstracts are published in the Proceedings in the alphabetical order, not categorically or thematically. The abstract of my article is in Italian and English. The idea of PM appeared for the first time just in , but I have been developing it for more than 30 years of my clinic practice. It was described by A. The method of musical portrait refers to the therapy of the disorder structure of self among non-psychotical patients neurotic disorders, personality disorders, eating disorders.
